While it is wonderful to see the attention being given to Martí, this book is a disappointment. Despite the yeoman-like efforts of the editors, who seek to provide a credible superstructure from which to hang the various contributions, their hard work does not pay off. Indeed this collection should serve as a salutary warning to conference organisers who seek to produce edited volumes from their academic meetings. Despite some excellent individual pieces (such as those of Montero, Schulman and Estrade), this is thin gruel indeed.

The Introduction explains that the Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies/Cuba Project in New York organised a conference ‘to explore new and diverse approaches to Cuban Studies’. Some 25 academics met for two days, and it is on this basis that the co-edited volume was produced. Understandably, given the extremely wide focus of this academic gathering, the end result is a diluted collection based (loosely) on Martí's multifaceted role and thought.

In an attempt to paper over the cracks we are informed by the editors that there are four thematic sections – ‘Building Nation and Cult of Martí', ‘Revolutionary Legacies’, ‘Martí in the United States’ and ‘Forming Identities’ (which analyses ‘themes of intellectual, migrant and gender identities sparked by Marti's legacy’). This last section is by far the weakest, providing a ‘grab bag’ of extremely loosely connected material (although the contribution of Carlos E. Bojórquez Urzaiz analyses in great depth the role of ‘la emigración cubana’ in Yucatán). Much of this section is fanciful and disconnected.

In many ways this section is a microcosm of the book, as the editors seek to shoe-horn a variety of loosely connected conference papers into a coherent whole. The effort fails, despite the noblest of intentions. Surprisingly, given the wide range of material discussed, there is a fair amount of repetition (particularly concerning the iconic use of Martí) and the editing should have been tighter since the contributions bear the telltale signs of being conference papers rather than academic essays.

Sadly, there are no contributions from the talented Centro de Estudios Martianos staff in Havana – presumably because the organisers knew that US immigration authorities would not grant them a visa. Without their contribution, the wide array of disparate conference papers falls flat – and adds little to a fresh understanding of the extraordinary thinker, writer, radical revolutionary and political organiser whose shadow looms large over Cuba.